SAN VICENTE, El Salvador- We arrived to the center of San Vicente where donations were being brought in from several organizations and dozens of El Salvadorians were working hard to bring relief to their fellow victims.

Trucks carrying huge 100 lb. sacks of rice, crates of eggs and fruits, branches full of plantains and other relief goods arrived into the devastated area and began unloading the supplies at a local catholic church. From there, women and children sorted through the donations and began packaging the relief items into black plastic bags for distribution. Six coffins also sat at the entrance of the church.

Cristina, the church administrator, told us that she is working hard to take care of her people. She escaped from her house with only the clothes on her back before a mudslide buried her home.

“The only thing that keeps me going and not crying is the chance I have to serve others,” she told me.

Hundreds of people were roaming the street, now without homes or possessions. It seems there is complete confusion and desperation.

Despite the fact that trucks have already cleared more than 22 tons of mud, dirt and debris from the village, huge rocks and piles of mud still fill the streets as a result of the rain that swept through this village and triggered massive landslides.

Those who were lucky enough to have their houses still standing watched the relief efforts from their porches or roof tops.

We sensed a “heaviness” in the air that left us wondering how many lives had been lost and how many thousands of men, women and children no longer have a place to live–families who do not know when they will be able to go “home” again.

Teams with Operation Blessing El Salvador brought 183 (5 gallon) buckets of dried fruit to help supplement the food donations. We have also coordinated with local authorities to set up a medical campaign at the two relief shelters here.

Tomorrow, we will bring Mayo Clinic doctors as well as local doctors to assist these victims. 

As we were leaving we noticed a family digging mud out of their home with a shovel. Erlinda, age 66, cried as she told us how she heard the rocks and mud crashing down on their home and buried the patio area beneath more than 6 feet of mud and debris.

“God saved me three times,” she told me. “First from the war, then the earthquake in 2001 and now, these landslides.”

She asked if we would return and I assured her that tomorrow we would return with doctors from abroad to help her and the El Salvadorian people.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Disaster Relief, Latin America, Medical relief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.